Its a Beach Bash Birthday

Kara is having a birthday in about a month.  She has been undecisive on a theme for quite some time.  Today, I am happy to say, we have a theme.   She is getting at an age when some theme are just too young.  I suggested a beach themed party, and she loved the idea.   I love that the dollar store has so many great things right now that are perfect for this theme. 

Since we are not really limited with a particular color scheme,  we are going with bright colors such as orange, pink, blue and yellow.   I found 2 packs of  20 pk orange plates for $1 each.  Orange is one of our high school colors and they were in the graduation aisle in seasoal.   There are many luau and beach type items in seasonal as well.   I thought the Surfs Up sign would be a cute decor item.  I also found serving trays in various colors and a tiki plate.  The pink item in the bottom right of the picture is a cardboard cupcake stand.    She also picked up 2 packs of invitations.  While they did not have invites that fit our theme, she did find one that she absolutely loved with dogs and cats in bright colors.  I did not push to have a "beach invitation" for a couple of reasons.   A big reason is the cost.  2 packs of invites were only $2. It would be hard to beat that price.   Another reason is time.  With end of school chaos, Beading for Autism, a garage sale and a dance recital in the next three weeks,  I know my schedule is already pretty  full.   Sometimes its okay to give in.

At first I thought I would use sand buckets as our "goody bag".  I then saw these really cute tote bags that were perfect for 9 and 10 yr old girls.   Each girl will get a beach bag filled with beach type items.  The dollar store carries cute water bottles, beach balls, flip flops, visors, and sunglasses.   We are going to have each of the girls embellish a pair of flip flops as a  craft. 

The Dollar Tree also had some fun activies.  We found hula hoops, badmiton rackets, water ballons and more.  I will use these to come up with some fun beach themed  games.  

We went next door to JoAnns. They were having a great Memorial Day Sale and I had an additional 10% off coupon.   I fell in love with the flamingo.  Did we need it? No. But could I found a reason to use it when it was 60% off plus the extra 10%. Yes.  It was normally $19.99.  I got it for $7.20.  I plan on using it as a centerpiece of one of the tables. We also got a super deal on the visors.  They are normally $1 each.  Today they were on sale for buy 3, get 2 free plus the extra 10%.  The final cost for each visor was only .54.  We also found some cute beach themed masks that we will use in come capactity.  They were on sale for only .80 each. 

I have many ideas that I do not have pictured yet.  I have game ideas, food ideas, treat ideas.  Over the next few weeks,  I will be sharing those ideas here.